After a delicious lunch at the nearby Anchor inn (the chef really knows what he is doing, creating a chocolate mint ice cream which tastes exactly like an After Eight and seafood arancini with saffron aioli), I joined a small group for a tour of this gorgeous eight-acre site in Hampshire on Sunday.
It adjoins Alice Holt and was given to Binstead Parish Council, known at the time as the Overseers of the Poor, in 1857. One field was used as a cricket pitch, then during the Second World War the Ministry of Supply took over to harvest timber and manufacture charcoal for explosives. Subsequently it was rather forgotten about, other than being used for horses to graze, until 2021. Now it is a thriving wildlife reserve, open to all, thanks to a dedicated and hard-working team of volunteers. Notable successes have been the installation of the owl carving, above, the presence of a pair of successfully breeding Kestrels and a wildflower meadow – finally this year I got to see some moths and butterflies such as this spectacular Burnet moth.
Having made the ridiculous schoolboy error of not having a spare camera battery with me, I had to rely on my phone, so apologies for the blurriness. Some of the images on the internet are a little blurred too, so perhaps it is just very hard to photograph (excuses, excuses).
As a precursor I was pleased to be joined at lunch by this green shield bug.
At Blacknest we also saw marbled white butterflies, a very metallic cricket, a grass snake and these slowworms, below.
In addition, bats are thriving and a wildlife pond has recently been excavated. There is still much to be done but work continues – tree and hedgerow planting, the creation of hibernacula for stag beetles and the installation of owl and kestrel boxes. The ultimate aim is that eventually the site will be able to look after itself. My thanks to Sarah who gave up her time to show us around and whose enthusiasm and love for the place were almost palpable.
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